1. Field of the Invention
The present invention provides an apparatus for the recovery of oils floating on a body of water, and specifically from the open seas, to be maneuvered by a support vessel.
2. Prior Art
Many and very serious are the damages which, from the ecological viewpoint, are caused to the marine environment by the losses and the discharges at sea of oily substances and from the hydrocarbons in particular.
Various types of machines have already been studied and experienced to solve this problem, but none of these has, until now, given an actual and feasible solution to it. The machines thought to mechanically recover the floating oils from the open seas have shown themselves, in fact, barely efficient and difficult to use, while the so-called "sinkers" or "dispersants" cause very serious damages to the marine environment.
Already known, in particular, are devices which can be called of a "moistening" or "adhesive" type, as, for instance, a system including disks or drums rotating about a horizontal axis, or systems including a belt in continuous motion. Such devices are caused to be lapped during their rotating or continuous movement by the surface layer of the oil which adheres onto their surface and which is removed by the use of scraping blades. However, when used in the open seas, these devices have a very low or completely void yield, chiefly due to the fact that they are mounted on an inner portion of their support vessel, where the polluted floating layer cannot easily arrive or where the oil on the water, which eventually enters, is shaken by the vessel's movements.
Even when these recovery devices are assembled on the outer side of the vessel, their efficiency is very poor because of the fact that they are rigidly connected with the vessel and they are therefore compelled to follow its movements so that they continuously splash the polluted surface of the sea (at least when the sea conditions are not completely calm) so that the oil is shaken with the water and the collecting drum (or disk, or belt) is continuously washed.